The Commemoration
of All the Faithful Departed
(All Souls)
(only
text, to print)
We
celebrated yesterday the Solemnity of All Saints. It was a happy and joyous
celebration. We contemplated our saints and we thought about the saints of our
family who also died in God’s grace, and with the hope of being able to
celebrate this feast after a few years, or very soon, because life goes by
quickly.
Today,
the Church wants us to pray for the deceased. May these, and all who sleep in Christ, find
in your presence light, happiness, and peace (from the Eucharistic Prayer
I).
And why do
we pray for the deceased? Because we believe that, to see God as He is, we have
to be clean of heart. Blessed are the
clean of heart, for they will see God (Mt 5:8). We also believe that they
may be in a place of purification which we call Purgatory.
What
is Purgatory?
The Catechism
of the Catholic Church says: All who die
in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed
assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification,
so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (C.C.C.
nº 1030). The Church calls this
final purification of the chosen ones, Purgatory.
Reflection
on the reading of the book of the Maccabees
The book
of Maccabees tells us that Judas fought against Gorgias, governor of Idumea,
and in that combat some of his soldiers died. On the following day, the men of
Judas, not being able to wait any longer, went to recover the bodies of those
who had fallen, in order to bury them with their relatives in the tombs of
their ancestors. They then realized that, under the coats of each one were
objects consecrated to the idols of Yamnia, prohibited by the law of the Jews.
Then all understood that that had been the cause of their death.
What did Judas do then? He then
took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver
drachmas, which he sent to
The
gospel that we have just heard, has told us about the resurrection of the son
of the widow of Nain (Lk 7:1-16). Two retinues meet: The retinue of death, carrying
a young dead man
accompanied by his mother, who was a widow, with the relatives and friends; and
the other, the one of Jesus and his disciples, and a great multitude that
followed him.
This is
the scene. Who will win: death or life?
Jesus, upon
seeing the poor mother who bitterly mourned the death of her son, felt sorry for
her and, with gentleness, tells her not to cry!
Jesus,
why do you tell her not to cry if it is so natural for the poor mother to bitterly
cry the death of her son?
Jesus,
what are you going to do?
He could
have gone by, but he doesn’t. He takes the initiative, moved by the compassion for
a widow who had lost what she loved the most: her son.
Jesus
approached the coffin
and touched it. Those who were carrying it, stopped. Then, He who is Life said
to the dead young man: arise!, and the young man sat up, and to demonstrate that he was
no longer dead but alive, he began to speak. Jesus who had found
that young man dead, with much gentleness, gave him back alive to his mother
who was filled with joy and stopped crying. The evangelist adds: Fear seized them all, and they glorified
God, exclaiming, "A great prophet has arisen in our midst," and
"God has visited his people." (Lk 7:16)
May the
Lord console us when we lose a loved one, as he consoled that mother!
The
preface of the mass for the dead says: Because the life of those you create,
Lord, is not destroyed, it is transformed; and, when we lose the earthly
dwelling, we receive an eternal mansion in Heaven.
At the
end of our pilgrimage through this world, we will not find ourselves in
emptiness, nothingness, but in the arms of God who will receive us as the
Father He is.
As we do
not know if our deceased are in heaven, we pray and have masses celebrated for
their souls. With our prayers, we can help them to come out of purgatory. It is
the best way we can help them.
Brothers
and sisters, this is our faith and, because we have this faith, we have come to
pray for our deceased, for our relatives and friends. But also for the other deceased
who, perhaps, nobody knows nor remembers: today we do not want to exclude anyone
from our prayer.
Before
finishing, let me tell you an anecdote: One day I was in the sachristy, when
the driver of the funeral home came and said to me: “I’m only bringing the
deceased, with nobody to accompany him”. I came out and I asked the sachristan to come
with me, and we both prayed for the deceased. How sad it must be to die alone,
without company, and to be buried this way!
The monk
of Poblet, father Agustí Altisent, writes: “For quite a few years now, I am no
longer a young man, and I am getting old. I am losing my strength; I am also
losing the visual and auditory capacity. I am losing my memory... For the
believer, to become
old is like putting oneself in the good hands of God. It is like surrendering
to him, one after another, the faculties that he gave us. As it thought that
they were mine, it hurts me to verify that I am losing them. I think that, when
I will have surrendered them all, I will finally have to surrender to Him my
will to live here and now. I know that it will not be easy for me. But every
day I ask that His will be done and not mine.
The best
way to help the deceased is to offer the Holy Mass for them, to give some alms
and to pray for them.
May our
relatives, friends and, and we ourselves, one day hear these words said to us
by Jesus: “Well done, my good and
faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you
great responsibilities. Come, share your
master's joy.” (Mt 25:21)